Just a warning, I'm a complete linux noob and am installing to try to become more skilled at using it.

I have a copy of Win XP Pro (NTFS) (95 gb) installed on my 120gb hard drive. I'm wanting to install Fedora Core 3 on the remaining space, but I want to have the boot partion put on my 512mb SanDisk Cruzer, so that in theory I boot windows without any splash screens without the cruzer in, and with in the usb port I have the option to boot into FC3. Let me know if this is completely offbase.

I put in the FC3 disks and plugged in the cruzer, but it sat there attempting to get usb storage drivers for about an hour or so. I assume I need drivers, but where are they and how can I get them onto my install disks?

You've picked a novel way to start with linux - it includes some of the more difficult things to do.

1. its not the boot partition you want to get onto the usb disk, its the bootloader - once you achieve that then the /boot stuff can be where you like (including on the main HDD)

2. you need to have the system bootable from a USB device, and that needs to include support for the device you have chosen (no guarantees offered for any randomly chosen device)

There is some stuff out there about achieving bootable systems on USB storage - but what you have said you want to do demands a solution to the hard bits, while keeping the main OS storage on the resident HDD.

Most of the distros work on the basis that you will use IDE HDDs, with some adding stuff which will utilise some SATA drives (limited by the SATA chipset). For USB support you have to add in the drivers to a module which gets read and used at boot time, but will have to be triggered from IDE or FDD storage.

I've done a little more research, and I think what I need is a GRUB floppy image and then write it to my Cruzer, but I can't find an image of it anywhere. Does anyone know where I can get one, or can someone make one and email it to me?

I've found a method that works with a program called Undisker for making bootable usb drives using floppy images, so if someone could get a grub disk in the .img filetype, let me know.

You can write the GRUB boot information to the USB disk directly fro the GRUB shell, but can you boot from that disk at all? Before you do anything else, I'd recommend installing one of the USB booting mini-distros on it, like Feather Linux, to make sure your BIOS and disk support booting.

I have two apparently similar USB sticks, of the same make, one boots the other will not.

"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." (Albert Einstein)